Free online college courses made a splash on the University of Illinois campus.
In the first day of enrollment, about 14,000 students enrolled in seven new, tuition-free online classes offered by the University of Illinois in partnership with online education company Coursera, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Coursera, which also announced partnerships with 11 other universities Tuesday, reported total enrollments of 50,000 across schools after the announcement.
Co-founder Daphne Koller told the Tribune the most popular of the U of I courses unsurprisingly were tech-related, one on developing smart phone apps and one on parallel programming. Other free courses available to Illinois students include organic chemistry and planet Earth.
Coursera is a California-based company that offers open online courses available to an unlimited number of students for free.
